AI is on top of my list

[jamesdietz]

"It also needs to get smarter in terms of when to break a fight or a pursuit and when to continue. While in old IL2 they stuck to one's tail forever this is fortunately no longer the case and they break off smarter than in the previous game. However, they lack bite considerably. After a few minutes they just form up and fly home and you can just shoot them down without reaction from them."

This is way too true..its much like the AI in BoBII when it first came out: you just wait til they turn for home for sausage & mash ( or frites) and pick them off one by one. They only seem mildly annoyed when one of their fellows falls away into the Channel & then resume their happy droning home,This is the time to hit them instead of the dogfight when both them & their aircraft are able to do crazy StarWars manuevers that I cannot possibly follow at 14-24 FPS!!!
It does create bad habits tho ,when going back to Il-2 where the AI are way more intelligent while their aircraft are limited to the rule of physics in the real world.

[oho]

One thing that's very annoying is the eyes in the back. I want to surprise a fighter from behind and not that he's always evaiding as soon as I'm less than 300 yards away.

[Fall_Pink?]

Originally Posted by smink1701

Now that the look and sounds of Cliffs are just about there the next fix on the top of my list is AI. I'm a SP guy and was chasing a Hurricane last night and it was shaking, flopping around and it just takes you right out of the game. With IL2 1946 the AI might have been dumbed down and unrealistic in many ways but at least the AI flying was fluid and looked real like someone coud be flying the plane. This just looks silly. Hope AI is near the top of the developers list as well.

PS Love the game

I Agree, but to some degree some improvements have already been made. I mean, they now know when to disengage and fly home. They report when they're empty (which is good) and I like the waiting pattern they fly when the last plane of a flight takes off. These are good improvements I think. Also good is the behavior when they need to fly cover and manouvres they fly (slow spirals and zig zags) when they need to accompany the bombers.

Less favourable are the sudden and very rapid directional changes when it comes to air combat and formation changes. They're too sudden and too much ufo-like, bombers included. When wingmen joining their leader it seems like they're trying to commit suicide. They fly straight at you and at the very last moment do a loop-di-loop and join you at your wing This should be improved a bit I guess.

I do enjoy playing the game however, but really wish to see some AI and AI commands improvements in the next patch. Some ground vectoring would be nice as well.

Rgs,
FP

[nuNce]

Originally Posted by oho

One thing that's very annoying is the eyes in the back. I want to surprise a fighter from behind and not that he's always evaiding as soon as I'm less than 300 yards away.

Actually I have the feeling that it always breaks as soon as I am about to get a good shot at it, sometimes it even breaks in the instant I push the trigger. It's one of the things that's killing the offline gaming part for me (toghether with performances).

[reflected]

I noticed that too. They break as soon as I press the trigger.

Also, yesterday I was flying a 109 E4 against Defiants, and I was seriously outpaced by them. There's not much CEM to do in the 109 with its automatic pp, so I don't know why full throttle wasn't enough...
It seems that the AI doesn't even use the FM of the actual plane. They always climb away, or run away, never lose E, etc...if you still get behind them tehy start rolling and rolling and rolling, in a screaming dive of 400 mph, your plane barely moves and the metal squeaks, but the AI still rolls like an F16.

So:
1) give the AI the same FM a human would use, and don't let them manage their plane perfectly either.

2) restrict their visibility and reflexes. (like in BoB2 WoV)

3) make them act human, i.e. more variety of maneuvers, trying to use their plane's strenghts, not only barrel rolls and occasional scissors. (like in BoB2 WoV)

[smink1701]

Originally Posted by reflected

I noticed that too. They break as soon as I press the trigger.

Also, yesterday I was flying a 109 E4 against Defiants, and I was seriously outpaced by them. There's not much CEM to do in the 109 with its automatic pp, so I don't know why full throttle wasn't enough...
It seems that the AI doesn't even use the FM of the actual plane. They always climb away, or run away, never lose E, etc...if you still get behind them tehy start rolling and rolling and rolling, in a screaming dive of 400 mph, your plane barely moves and the metal squeaks, but the AI still rolls like an F16.

So:
1) give the AI the same FM a human would use, and don't let them manage their plane perfectly either.

2) restrict their visibility and reflexes. (like in BoB2 WoV)

3) make them act human, i.e. more variety of maneuvers, trying to use their plane's strenghts, not only barrel rolls and occasional scissors. (like in BoB2 WoV)

1+, 1+, 1+. That's what I'm talkin' about.

[nuNce]

Originally Posted by reflected

(like in BoB2 WoV)

Little OT. How is that game, is it still worth it? How does it compare to Il-2 1946?

[buddye]

In BOBII the AI and the player use the same FM and code so they are equal with only two exceptions (1) the AI do not black out or white out and (2) the AI can see through clouds (the AI do have blind spots as they can not see through the solid A/C parts [wings, rear, nose, etc] or see into the sun). Customers do sometimes complain that the AI can pull more G's and does not black out but in my opinion the advantage is small against a human pilot.

In BobII the AI can stall, spin, crash, and do stupid things. The AI ability to fly effectively is controlled with "skill level" which the player can select in Instant Action Missions and skill level is assign or user controlled in the Dynamic Campaign (both commander and Single Pilot). The higher skill level AI are more effective in Air Combat as they have the ability to fly more maneuvers and they fly each maneuver more effectively and efficiently.

In BOBII we have over 80 complex maneuvers for selection (both the aggressive and defensive maneuvers) for the fighters (Spit,Hurri,109.110) and over 50 simple maneuvers for selection for the JU87 and Defiant

[Fall_Pink?]

Originally Posted by adonys

you can safely bet that the people who worked on IL2 AI's went away, and were not in there anymore to work on IL2CoD's AI.

you can also bet that the new people haven't worked on IL2 CoD more than half-a-year - a year (and most probably there was only one assigned to this).

that's what my almost 10 years game-developing experience tells me when I am looking at the launch/current state of IL2 CoD's AI.

I'm not so sure about that. To me it seems more likely they focused on certain area's (ground details, FM, DM, cockpits, AI and so on), but when they all tried to glue it together in their game engine they hit a wall. It stopped any further progress and they were pressed to release it anyway (lack of money, whatever).

Today, even after many patches, even with just 1 plane in the air and a few ground objects, the terrain still does not load smoothly on a very high end system. Adding more ram and more cpu power hardly makes a difference because the game is unable to use it.

To me it seems the real root cause is the game engine itself. Only when they've managed to fix this they will have time to look into the AI.

We can only hope - and Luthier mentioned a ~ 50% improvement - they'll find what the real trouble with the current CoD game engine is. Right now, it's still not running smoothly, especially when compared to IL2 10 years ago.

Rgs,
FP

[Fall_Pink?]

Originally Posted by buddye

I have been asked the following question many times, Can you just pull out the BOBII AI and use it in another Flight Sim?

The BOBII AI could “not” be easily be made into a separate program and used in another Flight Sim as it is tightly integrated with the BOBII design and data. Of course, the BOBII AI design and approach could be implemented in another Flight Sim but the cost would be high in development and testing.

The Game Industry has so many issues trying to make a profit that I some times worry that most all people who do this type of work do it out of love and not profit (I am a retired Executive Business Manager for 25 years in the software business so I understand and always focused on profit/loss). Just consider for a moment how risky the business of investing in games actually is. Geoffrey Zatkin of Electronic Entertainment Design and Research is quoted in this article as saying:

"Only 20% of games that begin production will ever finish. Of those 20% that are finished and released to the market, only 20% of them will ever realize a significant profit... that equals 4% of games that start production return a significant profit."

Talk about long odds and I bet the odds for Flight Sims are even lower.

BTW, the BOBII approach to AI performance has players who do not agree. The following is a statement by a good BOBII player:

"The AI having acrobatic style evasive maneuver are great for testing your skills in quick combat flights, but in real combat there were relatively few extended dogfights. Most fights usually ended very quickly with the first burst, and the loser seldom seeing his counterpart."

I am sure that everyone has read these words many times. This may be the real way air combat was fought but I am not sure it was the case all the time. This approach for the AI would be very "boring" for a player, IMHO, but it would be easy to implement (fire, run and hide, then repeat). IMHO, a combat Flight Sim developer must always factor in the Player's "Fun Factor" so the air combat dog fights are enjoyable and fun.

buddye,

Just out of curiosity, but what if you 'commercialize' this knowledge you have on flight sim AI? How hard would it be and how much time would be needed?

Now every game has it's own AI (mostly flawed and buggy at first) and each developer seems to make the same mistakes over and over again. First person shooter AI is different from flight sim AI, I understand that, but BoB2 and Cod are essentially the same: ww2 flight sims. They have the same number of planes in the air, same type of fighters and bombers.

Even more modern flight sims would be able to make use of the AI tables/matrices and set of maneuvers you made for bob2, right? AI pilots remain AI pilots, whatever the time period, so mimicking human behavior is the constant here. It's just the capabilities and tactics that change when new weapons platforms emerge.

It would be really nice to see some real progress in this field, that's all

Rgs,
FP